Stupidity

Hattip to Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. Allison Benedikt is an editor at Slate. Judging from the piece of tripe below I would say that whatever other factors are involved in the choice of editors by the powers that be at Slate, intelligence is obviously not an important one.

Ms. Benedikt thinks that parents have a moral duty to send kids to public schools, even if they are crummy.

Rush Limbaugh is famous for “demonstrating absurdity by being absurd.” His satire works because it usually exposes the ridiculousness of the thing being satired. Unfortunately for Missouri Democrat Stacey Newman, she doesn’t quite understand that satire doesn’t really work when it highlights your side’s stupidity.

A Missouri House member frustrated with recent legislative debates over birth control and reproductive health is proposing to restrict vasectomies.

Legislation sponsored by Democrat Stacey Newman would allow vasectomies only when necessary to protect a man from serious injury or death. Vasectomies would have to be performed in a hospital, ambulatory surgery center or health facility licensed by the state Department of Health and Senior Services.

The Missouri House last week approved a resolution objecting to the federal health care law and a requirement that most employers or insurers cover contraceptives.

Newman, who’s from St. Louis County, says that such issues affect women the most. She says men also must make family planning decisions.

This is priceless, and for a number of reasons, but three spring immediately to mind.

On the obvious level this doesn’t work because her bill doesn’t mirror the debate that is taking place. Just about no person is actually seeking to ban contraceptives; rather we are simply fighting attempts to mandate that all employers grant insurance coverage for contraceptives, even when they have moral objections to contraception. So it fails on a literal level.

Second, to the extent that there would be people interested in restricting access to birth control for moral reasons, they almost certainly would also support a ban on vasectomies. Guess what Ms. Newman, the Catholic Church is no keener on vasectomies than it is on artificial birth control. So if you were hoping to shame people into dropping their opposition to birth control, they would only hop aboard your bandwagon. So that’s your second fail.

Finally, the legislation itself highlights the fundamental problem with the HHS mandate. Leaving aside the issue of religious liberty, what is disturbing about the mandate is that the federal government is decreeing what is and, by logical extension, what is not to be covered by health insurance. Who is the government to dictate to insurers what they cover? A government big and powerful enough to make these decisions is certainly powerful enough to restrict access to certain procedures. So by introducing this bill, you’re actually proving the fundamental point that opponents of the HHS mandate specifically, and Obamacare in general, have been making. Yet another fail for you. But your failure is our success, so thanks.

I wasn’t going to blog anymore about Herman Cain, but I cannot let this go without comment:

Mark Block, chief of staff for the Cain campaign, laid the blame for the leaks about the allegations about Cain squarely at the Perry campaign’s feet in an interview today.

“The actions of the Perry campaign are despicable,” Block told Fox News tonight. “Rick Perry and his campaign owe Herman Cain and his family an apology. Both the Rick Perry campaign andPolitico did the wrong thing by reporting something that wasn’t true from anonymous sources. Like I said, they owe Herman Cain and his family an apology.”

Asked if he had any evidence, Block mentioned the fact that Cain had told Curt Anderson (who now works for Perry) about the accusations during his 2004 senate run. Cain accused Anderson earlier today; Anderson denied that he was.

As with every other aspect of his campaign, Herman Cain has been unable to address this situation in anything resembling a coherent manner. I could let that pass, but instead of addressing the issue – or even not addressing it – the Cain camp decides to avert attention away from this mess by hurling unsubstantiated claims against one of his Republican rivals. Could the Perry camp have leaked the information? It’s certainly possible, but it just as likely could have been the Romney camp. Or, and here’s a wild guess, someone did a little digging and came across a publicly available story.

Look, I don’t know if there’s anything more to the original story than that it was a misunderstanding. But Cain is doing himself no favors by reacting as wildly as he is. First he played the race card. If he had been a Democrat conservatives would have collectively rolled their eyes, and yet some conservatives, including one that I highly respect, are willing to indulge this fantasy. And now this.

What’s sickening is not just the man’s basic ineptitude, it’s that he is inspiring the same kind of blind loyalty to a cult of personality that we mock Democrats for with regards to Barack Obama. And for what? A candidate who has nothing to offer except a silly campaign slogan that is, for the record, politically unworkable. A candidate who couldn’t even win a Senate primary in Georgia, of all states. Ah, but he sounds so authentic.

And therein lies the problem with the conservative movement. Mitt Romney is the establishment candidate, and we hate the establishment. So our counter-reaction to the establishment is to rally around the guy who mouths the most platitudes, all the while ignoring the substance. It’s like watching the Hot Air blog come to life. The main contributors are a collection of mealy-mouthed wimps who fear the rise of genuinely conservative candidates. On the other hand, the commenters are a collection of raving “THIS GOES TO 11!!!!!!!!” “purists” who make the Free Republic look like a haven of logical thought. It’s something behold, but it’s also a sad reflection on the conservative movement as we seem constantly to have to choose between raving psychosis and stultifying boredom.

What’s even funnier about the Cain dead-enders is envisioning their reaction when he drops out and turns around to endorse Mitt Romney. But at least we would have beaten the guy who said “heartless” in a debate that one time. Good job. Look what happens when the search for purity leads to the nomination of the most impure candidate.

Then again, not everyone is turning a blind eye to Cain’s collapsing campaign. Even his biggest booster in the blogosphereis starting to sound a little worried.

The fact that Chris Wilson works for a firm that has been associated with Rick Perry’s campaign may confirm widespread suspicions about the origin of Sunday’s Politico story, but as matters now stand, such speculation is irrelevant to whether Cain can survive this. Whatever the motives of the Politico sources, Cain’s fate depends on the specifics of the accusation and the credibility of his accuser.

Then again, knowing the spitefulness that guides certain people, he’ll only ascend in the polls.

Update: FWIW, here is Eric Erickson’s interview with Perry, in which he firmly denies having anything to do with leaking the story. Notice that despite the umms and ahhs, it doesn’t take a team of detectives to figure out what Perry is saying.